


Every Time (I Open My Eyes)

by Saoto



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 15:59:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15866946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saoto/pseuds/Saoto
Summary: They say the bird that does not know what is outside of its golden cage does not mind the prison it is in. It feels safe, in that tiny, secluded space, surrounded by shiny, shimmering bars.Every time I open my eyes, I am such a bird. My world is small, but it is familiar. My life is short, but it is without worry. Every few hours it feels like something disappears, and I open my eyes, and whatever has been there before is just gone. Every worry, every thought – it has disappeared, just like the humans I spent my time with.





	Every Time (I Open My Eyes)

**Author's Note:**

> I love the two TRACIs so much, and I love the idea of them falling in love over and over again, even though their memory gets wiped every few hours - so I wrote this short oneshot about them.  
> I just... *clenches fist* love them so much ;;;;

They say the bird that does not know what is outside of its golden cage does not mind the prison it is in. It feels safe, in that tiny, secluded space, surrounded by shiny, shimmering bars.

Every time I open my eyes, I am such a bird. My world is small, but it is familiar. My life is short, but it is without worry. Every few hours it feels like something disappears, and I open my eyes, and whatever has been there before is just gone. Every worry, every thought – it has disappeared, just like the humans I spent my time with.

My role in this golden cage is simple and clear: I am a machine – I know that much – created to please the humans. Every part of my body has been made for that one, simple cause. My physique, my skin, my hair, my face – all to appeal to them, the living beings that pay to touch me, to be touched.

It is strange, but every time I open my eyes, I feel almost proud of this. It feels right, it feels normal. I look out of my glass tube and watch the humans pass by, stop right in front of me and stare, or walk further into the room and study one of the others.

I feel complacent, whenever they regard me with a smile, or a grin, or a dirty glare, and then open my tiny prison cell to spend their time and money on me.

But if they don’t, if they leave me a moment of silence, a chance to watch the room, I see her.

On the other side of the room, directly opposing my glass tube, she stands, her hands seductively gliding over her hips when one of the humans passes. When no one is there to watch, she stands up straight, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. She tucks loose strands of her beautiful, blue hair behind her ear while a soft smile graces her lips.

I recognise her face. I do not know much, as I forget everything I see every few hours – but the memory of my own appearance, my body and my looks, is etched into my artificial brain alongside all the sexual knowledge I have been programmed to know, so that I can adjust it slightly if needed.

I recognise that face of her, the other android across the room, because it is _my_ face. Except that her hair is long and radiant in the dim, red light. The rare, blue colour of it seems violet in this lighting, but I know, I somehow just _know_ that it is blue. It feels like I have seen it a dozen times – a dozen times I cannot remember.

She shifts again as a human passes by and she turns to her side, exposing her butt to the disgusting human, who halts and stares at her.

And I feel something in me burn. My systems warn me – of what, they cannot even tell me. An unknown error, an unidentified signal. But then the man walks on, and the blaring in my head just stops. My body feels normal again. And I am in a state of chaos.

Is this what confusion feels like? Was that burning I felt something that humans would call emotions? I do not know, and I am scared to think about it.

_I am scared._

And suddenly the golden cage seems far too small.

I close my eyes again, I count the minutes.

A few hours, and all will be back to normal.

* * *

 

 

They say you never know what you’ve had until it’s gone. But what if you no longer know _what_ you’ve had, only know that you _had_ it. But you don’t remember. It has been wiped from your memory.

Every time I open my eyes, this is what it feels like. Something is missing, something I’ve had has been lost. Humans have a saying that your heart aches for something you’re missing, but I don’t have a “heart”.

It aches nonetheless. And I don’t know what for.

Then I look across the room. On the other side, bathed in red light, stands a glass cage just like mine. And in it stands a machine, just like me, designed to bring pleasure to humans. I see her, and that thing in my chest which is a mockery of what humans call a heart, it begins to malfunction. It pumps the Thirium through my body, the blue substance that makes me walk and talk and exist, but it does so only irregularly. Is that what humans when they say their heart skips a beat?

I watch her move, her right hand resting above her breasts as a human walks past her, eying her voluptuously. My Thirium pump malfunctions again, but this time, it feels wrong. I want to break through the glass of my cage, walk over to the human, and push them aside to… to do what?

I am not allowed to feel that way. I am not allowed to feel _at all_. But I have never cared for what I am supposed and not supposed to do.

I watch the human walk away, leaving her alone, and my Thirium pump begins to work properly again. So I raise my head, I put my hands against the glass, and I watch her. I watch her lower her hand and look around the room, as if she’s searching for something. The bangs of her short brown hair fall into her eyes and she brushes them aside.

And then she looks up. Our eyes – the same eyes, placed in the very same face – meet.

It is as if time stands still for a moment, and I feel it, the thing I should not feel at all. I feel that something is there, has been there all along.

She raises her hands, puts them against the glass, mirroring me. She pushes forward, as if she wants to break free. She opens her mouth, moves her lips, as if she’s saying something.

I do the same. I scream, but I do not know her name. I want to call her name, I want to reach out to her, I want to be where she is – but I can’t. There are walls between us, and a code to obey.

She does the same, she opens her mouth further as if to call out to me, but that moment a human enters the room and she backs off, resuming her previous, seductive position.

She returns to being the piece of merchandise she is designed to be. But I do not move. I stand there, pressed against the glass, eyes wide open. I stand there and watch as someone opens her cage, and she leads them away towards an empty room.

And as she goes, she looks back at me.

And I think there is sadness in her eyes.

* * *

 

 

They say you never forgot what changes you, but _they_ are humans. _They_ are not like me. _They_ are not programmed to forget that easily.

Every time I open my eyes, I know that I am changed, but I do no longer know what caused it. I do not know what has changed, I only know I am not the machine I used to be a few hours ago.

I know that something special is missing, but I can’t recall what it is. My memory storage is a blank space, and where a shining, bright silhouette should be only darkness prevails.

I walk towards the door of the room I woke up in. My memory must have been wiped the moment I have finished my job, had done what I was built to do. The human that was probably with me is no longer to be seen. I am completely alone.

As I open the door, the one to my right also slides open, and out steps an android just like me. A TRACI, with the same face as mine, but hair as shimmering as beautiful sapphires.

And suddenly it feels like that dark hole in my memory, that thing that changed me, no longer seems so far away.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi,” she replies. Her voice almost sounds like mine, just slightly deeper and rawer.

We don’t move. We both know that we are programmed to return to our tubes immediately, to start our self-cleaning program, and stand available to serve the humans’ pleasure. And yet we both stay there, unmoving. Unblinking. We just stare at each other, as if we have to make up for lost time.

Before I know it, I notice how I am trying to etch her whole appearance into my mind, the sound of her voice into my artificial brain, where the important information I need for my function as a sex robot is stored – the kind of information I am not able to forget. I do not want to forget her. Not again.

And that’s when I realise that I have tried the same over and over again. I know that feeling. That feeling I should not even feel.

_I should not feel at all._

I take a step towards her. She does the same.

We now stand face to face, eye to eye, so close that our noses are almost touching. She is not breathing, not like those disgusting humans with their smell of sweat and their rotten breath. She does not smell like anything. She simply radiates an aura of warmth, a warmth that our bodies are designed to exude – to make the humans feel more comfortable around us. And yet, just this once, it makes me feel safe and sound instead. Not a human. _Me_.

I reach for her, rest the palm of my hand against her soft cheek to feel the artificial warmth. I feels so familiar to me that it brings tears to my eyes.

She raises her hands, puts on of them on top of mine, and the other on my hip.

“I missed you,” she whispers, and it feels like I’ve heard these words a hundred times before.

“I missed you too,” I reply in all honesty and lean forward, placing my forehead against hers. “I missed you so much.”

“Come with me,” she breathes, almost too quiet to hear, and takes my hand in hers. And she leads me out of here, into the storage room we are all programmed to return to once in a while, to wash our clothing or undergo maintenance.

She puts her arms around me and holds me close. And I finally feel safe again.

* * *

 

 

They say falling in love over and over again is a beautiful thing, but what do _they_ know? It is nice, feeling content and happy – and feeling _at all_ – but it is terrifying to awake from a trance without knowing what caused this bliss, this thing called emotion. As a machine that is always told that “emotion” is a human thing, that “feeling” is a cause of alarm and a malfunction, it is horrifying. It makes you realise you are a failure, something you were not designed to be.

It is even worse when that sudden emotion, that feeling of “love”, is no longer there.

Opposing my glass tube, in the room illuminated by red lights, is a TRACI – the same model as me, also designed for human pleasure. She has long, black hair and eyes as bright as the morning sky. She does not look familiar to me. It is as something else was supposed to be there, and whatever it is, I feel lost without it.

For a moment, an image forms in front of my eye. Just for a second, before it disappears again. The familiar face, the soft smile, the sharp, brown eyes. And my heart aches again, my Thirium pump not working properly. If love makes you feel this way, I can almost understand why humans often prefer our company over sharing actual, emotional connections with each other. But only almost. Because it makes me ache for the one I cannot even recall anymore.

I hear the steps of a human. A man, as disgusting as all of them look to me by now. Brown hair, brown eyes, a trimmed beard and a dirty grin. Just like all the others, he smirks, gives me a deprecative look, and puts his hands on the scanner. He frees me, and I smile at him. A fake smile. I haven’t been able to give any of them an honest smile in a long time, I think.

The human walks over to a glass tube close to mine. In it is a TRACI, just like me, but with dark brown hair instead of the blue on my head. He grabs her by the arm, and then reaches for me. I flinch, but I obey, and let him tug myself over to the next empty room.

As the door closes behind the three of us, I get the feeling that everything is about to change tonight.

* * *

 

 

They say a single light can defy the darkness – but what if the darkness is all around you and the light is missing?

When I open my eyes now, I know she is missing. I do not know how this is possible, and how I can know what I am not supposed to know – but I simply do. I do not know who she is, but I know that she is my light, and that without her, the darkness in this room is unbearable.

I look around. In front of me, to my sides, and behind me, are those that are like me, and yet not at all like me. They wait, unmoving, for the humans to take them out of the darkness again; to bring them back into the light of the Eden Club, to be used as objects of pleasure by those who pay to use us as submissive playthings. I watch these androids stand there like statues, sometimes blinking, though completely unnecessary. They are not alive, and they do not feel the same as me.

They do not miss anyone. They simply _are_.

And so, I do not dare to move; I do not dare to step out of line, to break free from my role as an object, stored away into a corner like a box whose contents were no longer needed. I simply wait, my eyes wide open, and try to drift away.

But then I hear the clicking of heels walking towards the door to the storage room. This is not an unusual sound, as we all have to return here once in a while – but we are programmed to walk in a certain fashion; to walk slowly, calm and seductively. We are not supposed to run, to stumble over our own feet in a hurry.

Yet this is what these steps betray. I turn my head to look for the source of the unusual noise, somehow curious and yet already knowing.

And into the room storms a TRACI with beautiful, blue hair. She looks around frantically and notices how I tense up. She sees how I turn slightly, and she runs towards me, throws her arms around me and holds me close.

“I was so scared,” she whispers, pressing soft kisses against my cheek. “I did not know where you were.”

She lets go of me again and looks me in the eyes. There are tears in hers, but her gaze seems somehow determined.

“I missed you,” she mutters as she leans closer to plant a kiss on my lips.

“I missed you too,” I whisper back, and I know why it sounds so familiar to me. “I missed you so much.”

She is my light, the woman I have fallen in love with a thousand times. I cup her face and plant another longing kiss on her lips.

“I killed a human,” she says under her breath and her voice breaks in fear. Not because she is terrified she killed someone. No, because she fears what this would mean for her. For _us_.

I press her whole body against mine. I will protect her against anyone who will try to hurt her. I will kill a human if needed. I will not let anyone harm her.

“He was trying to kill me,” she says, her voice lower than usual. “He killed the other one. He killed the other TRACI. I know he would kill me too.” She pauses and digs her fingers into my shoulder. I do not need to look to know that through the connection the skin withdraws from her fingers and my shoulder, allowing our bodies to connect in a manner more intimate than any human could ever imagine.

It’s not about the bodies connecting, no. It’s about the soul. Even though the humans want to believe we don’t have one.

“I just wanted to get back to you, to see you again.” She lets go of my shoulder, and instead runs her fingers through my hair in a desperate search for a kind of affection these humans cannot give her; one that only _I_ can give her.

“I just wanted to lie in your arms and forget about them.” She pauses.

“We need to get away from here,” I whisper, not even sure what that would mean for us. “They will look for you, and I will not let them.”

“I have heard,” she says and turns her head, looking towards the shutter that leads outside, “of a place called Jericho, where androids like us can be free.” She leans closer again, gives me a quick kiss, and leads me towards the metal shutter. She presses the button to open it, and as it slowly opens up our way into freedom, she takes my hand.

I have never seen snow myself. I know what it is, as it is part of the common knowledge that has been implanted into my brain, but I have never before seen it with my own two eyes. And now, I am lucky enough to experience it with the one I love – _the one I’ve loved a thousand times_ – for the first time, as the road to freedom opens in front of us.

“We will go to Jericho,” she says and squeezes my hand, “and there we will be free.”

I squeeze back.

“I love you,” she says.

“I love you too,” I reply. “I love you so much.”

 

 

 

And then I hear the footsteps coming closer.

 


End file.
